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Advocacy is important. You may have advocated for yourself or your community by speaking out, taking action or writing a letter. The more you know about disability related subjects, the better you can advocate. One subject to look at is Disability Justice. Disability Justice is about you advocating with the disabled community, sharing your viewpoint and changing how the community views disability. An important goal is inclusion for individuals who have been isolated by ableism and class boundaries.

There are many models to describe the different views of disability. The Medical Model focuses on fixing a disability. In the Charity Model, having a disability is something sad and pitied. The Social Model looks at changing the surrounding environment to meet needs that must be met. With the social model you are not trying to fix the person, so a community or organization can focus on inclusion, making sure that good policies and practices are really working.

There are many directions you can go to learn more about Disability Justice. It is an interesting field of study. You can also learn about activism in Disability History, and find out more about different ways to support activism today. A very important principal of Disability Justice is the way you are included in the community. Just know that inclusion is people accepted for being who they are, and that they have worth that is not measured by earning, buying or selling. Also, there is inclusion and interdependence when you can be a self-advocate knowing your allies see your disability as natural and beautiful.

Inclusion is more than just being in the community. You want to be in a welcoming accessible space. When you have a job, you want to be comfortable in the work environment that you are in. But, it is more than just being there and getting paid. It's important to be appreciated and know that you can make a contribution to the main goals of your job. It's being able to have a say in how to do your job. This would be true even if you are volunteering, or in school. Disability Justice is about the whole community meeting each other’s needs, and being led by the disabled people who know most about being oppressed and excluded.

If you look back at past blogs, you may have seen Stella Young in her video, talking about the wrong way of seeing disability. In other blogs, you may have read about language used in the disability community or learned about helpful resources. I hope this knowledge can help you to self-advocate. I also hope that you become inspired by the stories of pioneers in the disability movement like Ed Roberts. The work Justin Dart did to achieve the ADA was an important milestone of the Disability Rights movement. Before the vote on the ADA, many protests were held to show legislators the need for disability rights, and other legal issues including accessibility. The Capital Crawl was a well-known protest from that time. Protests about disability rights that were held pre-ADA led the way to post-ADA protests that were about enforcing rules. Today, protests can be used in support of Disability Justice issues. Inclusion is always important. It takes hard work and persistence to fight Ableism and to create the welcoming accessible spaces that everybody needs. I believe that good self-advocates and allies are ready for the challenge.

​I want to explain how disability pride/justice and self-advocacy can help you see your issue as a community issue. As you advocate you would learn more about issues from other self-advocates and allies. You may find the reason there isn’t competition in para-transit is because a lot of other local taxi services are not accessible. Don’t think of para-transit as a lucky thing to have, even though it is helpful to the disabled community. It’s important for customers to complain since no business is perfect and things go wrong.You are paying for a service with hard earned money. So demand respect and excellent customer service. When you advocate for yourself by making a complaint it may help your community. In some cases letters to para-transit supports the issues para-transit employees may speak out about. So when you made your point, you would be supporting an ally. The community is helped by when self-advocates and allies working together.In the last year the para-transit company I use changed their booking system. Now there is a “be ready” window, which is a 15 minute block of time when a vehicle comes, waits five minutes and then leaves. One time I was ready and waiting for 10 minutes before the “be ready” window, but ended up waiting in the rain for 45 minutes! Another time a driver picked me up a little late and told me that he had seen me waiting earlier when he passed my location but explained he couldn’t pick me up because I wasn’t next on his list. These are examples of problems that I observed. I am lucky since I spoke out at the time with a phone call and got results. Other people may not be that lucky, but it is still good to advocate by writing letters.The demand for public transportation is strong in the community. People with disabilities, like myself, need to get to work, home, appointments, play, and etcetera. As a customer of any business it helps to speak up and you may get good results when you do. It is always good to self- advocate. As you speak up you may find other community issues. You may learn about allies working for the para-transit company. This is why it is important to advocate for yourself and the disability community on issues like transportation. As you do so you may learn the system and have more to talk about to other advocates.

​With the election being over and a new president coming in we know there will be changes in policy. This would be true no matter who is president. By now you know Donald Trump, who said many controversial things, is the President-Elect. You may have noticed with any president it is hard to do everything that is promised. No presidency is an island as things are set in place by previous presidents, current events and even public opinion can affect the White House. Let President Trump know your concerns by writing a letter. By doing this you may affect the White House’s view of public opinion.There are many issues you might write about since you may choose to identify in many ways. President-Elect Trump wrote about disability issues in an NCIL survey. The link is underneath.

To better understand the current issues in the disabled community here is a link to an open letter from ADAPT to President-Elect Donald Trump.

​Disability Pride, seeing your disability as a natural and beautiful thing, helps you to be a self-advocate. With an ally’s help and with other self-advocates you can fight common issues such as bullying. You can have pride in our culture and use language with understanding. There is a lot to be proud of in the disabled community. Our history is one example. Disability history can be seen as stories of oppression and resistance. Speaking up for what is right for one another is what allies and self-advocates do. You may have noticed this when I talked about different events in earlier blogs. I will blog about disability history in future blogs. But, until then, you can think about disability history as a record of the actions of self-advocates and allies. Allies and self-advocates are the disabled community. As a self-advocate you can fight ableism which includes all the forms of prejudice against people with disabilities. You can do this by; speaking up for yourself, making your decisions about your life, learning about things that are important to you, knowing your rights and responsibilities, problem solving and knowing who you can reach out to and reaching out to them.Disability Pride can also help you to become an effective self-advocate. Becoming a self-advocate is a learning process and needs some communication skills. I am still learning good skills way into adulthood. You learn though practice. There are terms preferred by the disabled community. Understanding how language is used by the disability community is important since language can be considered offensive, such as words that shouldn’t be used because they hurt, or surviving, such as words that are not liked but are being used by law or a group, or thriving, which is the language currently preferred by the community. Knowing the preferred language can give you strength by having a vocabulary to explain what you mean. Be aware that preferences of terms will change over time. If you have been bullied you may have found communication got harder at those times. At these times allies can help. An ally is a person without a current disability who learns about and fights ableism in order to help people with disabilities. Allies can also help and speak up and let others know when words are offensive. So allies and self-advocates both have roles as disability advocates.Being bullied isn’t fun. Just know that being a good self-advocate and having allies can help. It will take practice. Just know that understanding Disability Pride leads to self-confidence. This helps you get to a place where bullies seem silly and allies become friends.

﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿It is hard for anyone to make financial decisions. When you are on SSI you may be confused about restrictions or even told taking a sub-minimum wage job helps you. So you are worried about getting a minimum wage job. But, you can work anywhere if you get help understanding how SSI works. A Benefits Planner can help you to make a financial plan. A Benefits Planner is a trained expert who can help Social Security beneficiaries understand disability benefit programs. Please read the list below to find the Benefits Planner near you. Just know you can work. In the case of being a student with a disability, there is an incentive program called Student Earned Income Exclusion (SEIE). SEIE is not solely for persons with intellectual or developmental disabilities. A student with mental illness or solely a physical disability meeting Social Security Administration’s (SSA) criteria would also be eligible.The fact sheet [i]on the SEIE program would tell you:If you receive SSI benefits and you are under age 22, and regularly attend school, the SSA will not count up to $1,780 of wages per month, while you are attending school and working. You would need to be in a college or university at least 8 hours a week, or in grades 7-12 for at least 12 hours a week, or in training to prepare for employment for at least 12 hours a week (15 hours a week if shop practice is involved). Of course things beyond your control such as illness are understandable, and may reduce the attendance requirements. Those being home schooled because of their parent’s belief in this model and have a disability also have ways to be considered regularly attending school. So, in those cases you could work without getting your benefits reduced. Again I recommend talking to a Benefits Planner before making any financial decisions with SSI.The main point I want to make is, SEIE is a good incentive for students under age 22 to work while receiving SSI benefits.As you grow up, don’t settle for a job offer paying below minimum wage. The bottom line is, if you have SSI don’t fear your finances or believe horror stories about what you can’t do. Just talk to an expert and get an understanding of the rules and programs you can use. The expert who knows what you can do is your benefits planner for any form of social security.

26 years ago on July 26th 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed by President George H. W. Bush, the same year I graduated from High School. The ADA has increased access to many things, including employment, government programs and services, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transportation and assistive technology.Justin Dart Jr. actively promoted the ADA as he came to the conclusion that the ADA was needed to get equality and jobs for all people. Dart’s work took him to every state, Puerto Rico, Guam, and Washington D.C.

During this time, Justin Dart and the disability community organized to protest and would write letters. The most famous of these protests was the Capital Crawl when people with disabilities actually crawled up the 83 stone US capitol steps in support of passing the act. Because of his hard work and encouragement, he is known as the father of the ADA.

You may look back and think Justin Dart was great, but, 26 years is a long time since then. This is true. Just note that the Americans with Disabilities Act may need updates to help you today. You could get involved. The size of your activism doesn’t matter. I encourage you to be aware of events and groups around you. Groups like Michigan ADAPT and other groups, organize protests and letter writing.

While the passage of the ADA is in the past, the need to be heard is always here. Issues don’t need to be big. For example, just the other month I went to a CATA advisory meeting with Laura Hall to discuss issues that were important to us. The need to be heard is always here and we were proud to be heard. ​

There are a few ways to look at disability. You might look at yours the way a doctor would, as something to be fixed, the medical model. You may see it as a reason to hide your disability, if you think this way. There are a multiple of models looking at disability. I suggest you look at barriers, such as lack of access or negative attitudes people with disabilities face as caused by society, which is the social model. This perspective helps you to stop hiding a part of yourself. Disability identity is one of many identities you may have.(Here is a link to a page where you can explore different models of disabilities.)mymdrc.org/leadership/models-of-disabilitySince disability is one of your many identities, it is possibly not your strongest one. Stella Young has a great description of this in her YouTube video. The video is about her concept of disability as not making you exceptional. In it she describes herself as an average teen and tells about the time her home town wanted to give her an achievement award. But, Stella Young talked about how at the time, she didn’t have any major achievements.

I believe this notion is a very important part of identity, being able to know your qualities. This can help you see your disability as one of your many identities.

Later in the video, she talks about the genius of figuring out you can use things like bar-b-que tongs to pick things up. I don’t know about you, but this helps to give me pride. When you talk to other people with similar disabilities you learn about ways of working with disabilities, and Accessible Technology that could help you. For example I was told you can make a request for your meat to come cut, possibly by the cook. This helps me and I agree with Stella Young that the idea is genius. Talking to other people in the disabled community gives you new ideas strengthening disabled pride.

I am going to leave you with Stella Young, an icon, who can explain these ideas well, enjoy.

We all have many identities. There are great reasons to identify as disabled. Embracing all your identities and seeing how they all intersect helps define who you are. I am an adult who is a Methodist, consider myself to be an artist, etc. I am proud of all my identities including the fact that I am a man with Cerebral Palsy. Seeing how all of these identities interconnect makes me feel great. I am also proud to be part of a community with historic ties to the CILs and people like Ed Roberts, activist, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Justin Dart Jr., father of the ADA, and Judith Heumann, international leader in the disability community.

Disability culture intertwines with feminists, presidents, and many other people in history. There are plenty of great reasons to identify as a person with a disability. As you identify with this community you might stop being shy about asking for things you may need, such as AT. It is important to self-advocate. We are a community of self-advocates, with a history to be proud of. When you look at Disability History, you would find advocates holding the longest protest in 1973 to get section 504 of the rehabilitation act, a civil rights statute, enacted. We promoted person-first and identity-first language and with a lot of work we got the ADA of 1990 enacted. These are examples of actions that makes our community stronger.

It may be confusing to understand Disability Pride for the first time, but Disability Pride comes from celebrating our own heritage, culture, unique experiences, and contributions. I know that for me, when I acknowledged my disability I felt more connected to a community of people with disabilities, which makes me proud. Sometimes when you’re young it is easy not to feel unique, but when you find an identity, you find a community. Such as having a faith and having a church. Now, I see my disability as a natural and beautiful part of human diversity.

Identifying as a person with a disability helps me to acknowledge areas where I need help and ask for things that could help me with living. One example is Assistive Technology. This is something you can read about in the MDRC AT blog. When you identify as a person with a Disability you will find there are many areas to be proud of, such as having a history, being part of a culture or just being open to ask for help. So be Strong and Proud!

​Since I started identifying as disabled, I have gained pride in being part of the disability community and I see my disability as natural and beautiful. This helps me to self-advocate. One of my friends and co-workers, Joe Pietron, is very good at explaining finding pride from his disability identity. This May 14 – 15 he is holding a Boy’s Program for young men with disabilities. The program is sponsored by MDRC Youth and will focus on learning about disability culture, identity, pride and media literacy among other topics. The program is going to be fun and interactive.

If his name sounded familiar it is because you may know him from our disability pride school presentations. If you are a boy between the ages of 14 and 19, this is a chance to meet other people your age with disabilities across Michigan. You will gain an understanding of what you have in common. If you enjoy our blogs on history and culture, you will enjoy the Boy's Program. The facilitators will included Joe Pietron, David.St Amant and I (Paul Miller). We are all people with disabilities and eager to share our experiences. If you would like more information on disability pride I encourage you to watch the embedded video. I encourage you to come. The registration form can be found by clicing on the Program Information tab above. We look forward to meeting you

​You may have heard the complaint from comedians like Bill Maher that they are being told what they say is wrong. You also could have heard a certain politician claim that when people complain about being offended it is because of political correctness. The truth is when you respect a group you use the terms they like. In the 90’s we were told special needs was the politically correct term, but it was a term I didn’t hear in any of my circles. So, when we came to the understanding that the R word was offensive because of over use and other use of the term we had to explain that we were not asking people to be politically correct we were asking for respect of the disabled community, a respect that comes from person first and identity first language.

As we talk about person first and identity first language, it is important to note that these are terms that are preferred by some members of the disability community and are not part of political correctness. I would say I am a person with Cerebral Palsy when using person first language. You can also talk generally and say person with a disability. With identity first you would capitalize the name of the Disability as you are talking about a group. Either way, you want the people you are talking to, to have some understanding of what your disability is or ask questions to get an understanding. I want to be clear and point out a term or an overused term.

Person first or identity first language is not part of political correctness. No one should be nervous about word usage or made to feel bad about feeling offended. I believe this is how the term political correctness is confusing. As self-advocates we want our allies to be comfortable explaining things and supporting us. We also want society to know what’s offensive without being accused of being politically correct. If it is the case where one believes anything you want to say is ok to fight against a term, then civility is gone and it could lead to allowing violence in recent like in a Trump rally in Chicago. The best we can do is to listen to one another. Understand that respected terms are important to communication and understanding. Whether your issue is to use identity first or person first language, the important thing is that you are civil and respect other communities.